Lioness' Revenge
by CynicalInkSlinger
Summary: Edward never returned... but Bella never died. In the Volturi, pain is flaw... and fury. Bella has plenty. Eventually B/E, but Edward bashing as of yet.
1. Chapter 1

An interesting idea that popped in there while I was waking up

**An interesting idea that popped in there while I was waking up. Kinda crazy, but we all want to be mad at Eddie sometimes. And, yes, I'm an Edward lover, Jacob hater. So it's all in the name of creativity. :D**

**Disclaimer: It's good ol Stephie Meyer's. Not mine.**

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**Lioness' Revenge**

_It had been a year since Bella' disappearance. She was assumed dead. Edward had tried the Volturi, tried his own family, tried himself- he couldn't find a way to die. Finally believing he didn't deserve even death, he went into seclusion on a small island off the coast of Italy, where he couldn't go outside even if he wanted to- too sunny. His life is boring, painful- and one day, a vampiress in dark clothes and a powerful demeanor entered his home…._

Edward, sitting in his room, in the dark, doing nothing, flinched. An oddity in his lifeless world. Someone was in his house…. someone blocking her thoughts.

Sitting bolt upright, he stepped quickly into the front room, to face a deadly beautiful vampiress in black clothes. "Who are you? Why are you here?" He demanded, in a sharp tone incongruous with the quiet surroundings. This whole situation was incongruous with everything familiar.

Her tone was quiet, reciting, her eyes flashing with power, threat, and loyalty to some unseen force. "I bear a message from one of my most powerful masters," began coldly, "She says that the lamb has turned into a lion, and that old wounds never heal."

An out of place pity touched the agents eyes, a feeling reflected in her briefly unguarded thoughts. "Whoever you are, I don't envy you. The revenge of the most powerful vampires in centuries will be slow and sweet- whatever you did to her as a human has lasted, her only flaw. In the Volturi, flaws beget fury." Memories of past victims flashed in her mind before it was closed again. They weren't pretty.

The Volturi agent, message delivered, turned to go, and Edward quickly intervened. "Wait- if it is revenge your mistress seeks, why does she not enact it now? Am I to be let free till her whim calls me?" He said in an equally icy demeanor, "Death is something I have hoped for."

She replied impatiently, jerking her arm free from his grasp, "Then you shall not receive it. Neither are you free. My mistress ordered me to put a barrier up that will only expire when she wishes. Don't worry- you won't starve completely to death. I've she plans a visit in a week or two." She gave a tight-lipped smile and swept out.

Edward sat again, feeling his stomach drop in dread. He had handled pain before, more emotional pain than anyone he had never known… but the agent's memories had, I was hard to admit, put a visceral fear in him. A horror.

What had he done?... _'the lamb has turned into a lion'….. _Bella. For moment he was numb, no thoughts at all.

Until a thread of imagination peeped up, coming up with all the years Bella must have spent feeling rejected and betrayed, all of the danger she must have experienced, and, in the end, all the pain of becoming a vampire and a master in the order of the Volturi.

That little thread quietly stripped all shreds of dignity, innocence, and decency from him. She could justifiably do anything to him. _And she will, _he thought with difficulty, before letting his brain collapse under emotion.

Guilt, shock, pain, and a rarer emotion- that fear. He was resigned, even accepting of his torture now, but he still dreaded. Even more shocking, though, was that tiny feeling of love, almost rightness, in knowing that _Bella_ still graced the world with her presence.

And this was the relief that broke the camel's back. This consternation, complexity, dread, stress- who knew what the agent did with whatever power she had- all this roared in his ears, and for the first time in over 100 years, he was unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

Yay

**Yay! I've finally written a new chapter. And taken time to actually type it. (Yes, I like to write stuff on paper first.) Um… enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Blah.**

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**Lioness' Revenge: Chapter 2**

_It was blindingly fast. Bella hadn't even seen him coming before his teeth were in her. Yes, it was quick- but far from painless. Fire filled her mind swiftly, interspersed with frozen images of huge wolves driving him away, and a cloying sickness that grew inside her gut. For a split second, her stomach had leaped at the touch of that cold skin. Now it felt like it was trying to expel itself from her insides- but it was all going to burn anyways._

--

It had been a week and a half since the Volturi agent visited, and thirst was desperate for Edward. The weakness hadn't completely set in, but he would get dizzy now if he used vampire speed or attempted to use his power.

A power that was blocked, anyway, by the barrier she had put up. One that was mental, and physical. He didn't know how many times he had stood on the threshold of the door, staring outside, willing himself to move forward.

By now, the… panic, I suppose you would call it, had been replaced by a sort of shock. The thirst probably contributed to this. Edward didn't have to look to know that his eyes were a dull pitch black. He could feel it in the searing of his throat. And seconds, minutes, hours, days passed…

And five days later, he was just trying to conserve energy as it slipped away. He sat, immovable, trying to save as much strength as he could for when they would come.

When _she_ would come. Bella. His half-delirious mind kept picturing her, sharp, beautifully sorrowful memories juxtaposed with fuzzy imaginings of the present. Sweet warm brown with bitter cold red, joyful smile with furious snarl, that careless, natural, vulnerable way of holding her body, with a stiff, tensed, violent readiness. Even her holey sweatpants and ridiculous t-shirts, traded for a silk grey robe, impersonal, alien.

_His_ Bella had been murdered, or at least imprisoned forever, and Edward had caused as surely as if he'd put a bullet in her brain.

His delirium was such that he could not remember a time when he was not thirsty.

It had now been two and a half weeks since he was free- three since he had hunted. He could barely move a finger.

And then came the day his torment changed forever.

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**Sorry! I seem to have grown fond of cliffies. They make it easier to finish a chapter- though I'm sorry this one's so short!- and they give me ammunition against reluctant reviewers. :D Come on guys! Let's make some double digits!**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Many apologies for lateness. You reviews kept me feeling guilty, though, if it makes you feel any better. And I made this longer by staying up later than I should, so enjoy!!**_

_**Oh, and I also found out how to make the spacing look cooler, and I added a Bella PoV. So the waiting was all worth it. Right? Right?**_

_**[insert disclaimer here]**_

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**Lioness' Revenge: Chapter 3**

That morning, Edward was still just lying there, trying to conserve energy, trying to not think, when he smelled something that even his dulled senses screamed.

Blood.

It was amazing, that mere animal blood could provoke such a monster of a thirst. Edward could even move now, and he did, in desperation, dully trying to reach this source of life, till it was dropped into his lap -- quite literally.

Without looking up, he drained the live rabbit completely dry. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

And then he looked up, restored to a slightly weakened version of his former self. Looked up to meet disdainful, sharp, dangerous eyes. Bella's eyes.

Tawny?

Edward opened his mouth to say something, he had no idea what, but was stopped when she struck him violently across the face, whipping his head around, and disappeared into the other room.

He didn't think she wanted to be followed, no matter how much he wanted to.

Bella PoV

The first few months had been the worst, for Bella. Coming to terms with what she had become, disentangling herself from the dubious friendship of the pack, learning to deal with the pain. Sticking to animal blood, because she just didn't care for human (she had tried once, when Aro got curious- he always got _so_ curious). When she had found the Volturi, it wasn't because they found out about her power. It was because she was visiting Italy and she was conscripted on a whim. She had to fight and claw her way up the ranks (the training, nails, teeth, and always _his_ voice, the stinging of venom, endless sniping) because she didn't want to reveal her power. She didn't even want to use it. It reminded her too much of... them.

Because Bella's power was absorbing powers, and her best ones were... theirs.

In the end she had learned, oh, she had learned. To control her self, to control others, to control her world. She became a lady of the Volturi, with all the power and danger that entails. She only revealed her power to those she trusted. She was feared, because she was unknown.

But she never learned to control the pain. She still heard his voice sometimes, she still tried not to think of him. Sometimes it would get bad, and then she was to be avoided. Sometimes it got really bad, and then she was frighteningly vulnerable, and her trusted servants and acquaintances had to ensure her protection.

Some people thought her tawny eyes meant weakness. Those people were the quickest to die.

And eventually, she became coldly, deeply furious with _him_. So she sent out people, who were good at what they did, to find him. She wanted him to feel her pain.

And she wanted to eliminate her weakness.

She sent out Caitlin, her most trusted and close of all who served her, to put up one of her barriers. Caitlin was the one who understood the most, who respected Bella's power and didn't pity her weakness. She respected silence as some vampires did not.

But when she saw him, saw his bottomless black eyes, his crumpled and weak figure, even after all her careful planning and preparation for slow, sweet, vengeance (he forgot her -- He lied -- He _hurt so much_), she had faltered. Seeing that black seep into ochre with his slight nourishment, she had hesitated.

_Edward. _ She let his name burn its way out of her throat as she sped into the next room, hissing it. He wouldn't even ear it, with his dulled senses (she had experienced such thirst before). And it was ridiculous that his name should still hurt like that.

In that other room, empty but for a table and chair, she settled, hiding the lower half of her face in her arms and feeling her eyes turn charcoal from bitter anger.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Here's another one, dear friends. Enjoy. Or else. ;)**_

_**Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyers. Shocker.**_

**Lioness' Revenge: Chapter 4**

Bella had been sitting for an hour when she unwillingly recalled a memory, one from her early days in the Volturi. She was still low in rank, little more than a recruit, but one who showed such promise alongside such odd taste was often talked of in that stale environment, and Aro had sent for her- as always, curious.

At first, he had only questioned her, raising his eyebrows when she told him she didn't like human blood, smiling that smile that Bella didn't trust. She trusted little.

But the inevitable happened, and he held out a papery hand, saying merely 'If you will?' Of course Bella knew it would be dangerous to refuse, but she still hesitated, gritting her teeth as she finally gave him her hand and gave up her secrets.

He waited a moment longer than she expected, looking up with an expression of surprise, sympathy, and awe that she also did not expect. "You will never be able to escape it, you know. One day it will be too much, this love, or this hate. Until the, though, I think you will do very well with us… very well…" and he had smile, nodded, and dismissed her. She swore to herself he was wrong, and later found that he had promoted her three ranks.

And today, she swore he was wrong again and went out to face Him.

She just stood there for a few minutes, across the room, watching him with a indecipherable and cold expression on her face. She was a slim figure, all in black, her brown hair swept behind her shoulders and tumbling down her shoulder blades. Edward also watched her, staring at her steadily and trying to breathe in as much of her scent as he could without making a sound. She wasn't breathing at all.

After a few minutes, Edward raised his arm a little, as to get up, and opened his mouth to say something. But immediately his arm was pinned to the wall with a strange white edged knife, thrown lightning fast, and Bella had disappeared out the front door.

In a second, Edward had taken the knife out of the wall and his arm, hissing at the pain. He examined the knife, wondering how it had gotten through vampire skin and trying not to wonder where she was. The knife's edge was white, and oddly segmented… teeth. They were vampire teeth. Edward closed his eyes and stuck the knife easily in the ground before taking a look at his arm. He could see right through it- he estimated it would take at least 20 minutes to heal.

He levered himself to a standing position and walked into the room with the table and chairs, sitting down in one of them. He supposed he'd better be ready for her, whenever she got back.

It was inconceivable, how much he wanted to go seek her out. How much, when she had slapped him, he was grateful for the touch of her skin. How much he had longed to say when she had stared at him. How much his entire existence loved her, needed her, and would until his non-existence. Even if it was caused by her. How much he would wait for her, till the end of the world.


End file.
